Released by: Frontiers Records

Release Date: Out Now!!!

Genre: Hard Rock

Line Up:

Pasi Rantanen – vocals
Antti Wirman – guitars
Jari Pailamo – keyboards
Time Schleifer – bass
Mirka Rantanen – drums
PRODUCED BY : King Company

Tracklist:

1. One For the Road
2. Shining
3. In Wheel of No Return
4. Coming Back To Life
5. No Man’s Land
6. Farewell
7. Wings of Love
8. Cast Away
9. Desire
10. Holding On
11. One Heart

There’s something about 80’s hard rock that holds a special place in my heart. During my formative teenage years when music was often the one thing that got me through the day, the bands now referred to insultingly as “hair metal” were able to capture so many different feelings and emotions in their music, creating a soundtrack for any situation an awkward, introverted metal-head needed for any given moment. Even as I moved on to college during the 90’s when these bands became pariahs to the music world that wholly embraced them a few years prior, I still held my love for them. When it wasn’t socially acceptable to have posters of Slaughter, KISS, and Loudness in my dorm room and wearing Winger and Bulletboy shirts without an ounce of irony, I still loved those bands while dipping my toes into new musical landscapes. Sure, I may listen to a widely different spectrum of music now than I did when I was 16, but I still have times when I need to toss on some Europe, Whitesnake, and White Lion to keep me grounded.

The band King Company with their debut album One For the Road, have more or less encapsulated that era in a major way. As soon as the music started I was transported to when I first heard the aforementioned bands for the first time, that thrill and excitement of up-tempo hard rock music, catchy melodies, sing-along choruses. Yet even though they stirred up feelings of old within me, they managed to do it within the confines of a fairly modern sounding album. The makeup and Aqua Net aren’t dripping through the speakers as much as just that fun musical spirit of those days. They’ve managed to create an album that takes all of the elements of 80’s hard rock that made it such an impactful genre, updated the music adding interesting guitar bits with keyboards on a track like “Coming Back To Life” while also being able to tug at the heart strings with passion like on a song like “No Man’s Land,” back to back tracks offering two sides of the hard rock coin, without losing any steam. Of course, it helps that the members have been around a bit from bands like Warmen and Thunderstone.

This is a very impressive album. One of the stronger melodic rock albums to come out this year, King Company’s One For the Road hearkens back to the old days of hard rock without emulating the genre wholly. This one might not be on a lot of people’s radar, but it probably should. I wasn’t expecting a lot but got more than I bargained for indeed. Give it a spin or two and see what you think.

Reviewer: Chris Martin